Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality.

I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.

A man's errors are his portals of discovery.

A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

Ireland sober is Ireland stiff.

I fear those big words which make us so unhappy.

I think a child should be allowed to take his father's or mother's name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.

The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole Life to reading my works.

My words in her mind: cold polished stones sinking through a quagmire.

Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk.

Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance.

Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by posterity because he was the last to discover America.

Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead.

Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse.

Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.

Men are governed by lines of intellect - women: by curves of emotion.

There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.

Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.

Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.

The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.

Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality.

The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you.

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.

Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.

Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not.

Satan, really, is the romantic youth of Jesus re-appearing for a moment.

And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes.

When I die Dublin will be written in my heart.

Nations have their ego, just like individuals.

A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk.

You forget that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence: and the kingdom of heaven is like a woman.

If Ireland is to become a new Ireland she must first become European.

He found in the world without as actual what was in his world within as possible.

My mouth is full of decayed teeth and my soul of decayed ambitions.

A nation is the same people living in the same place.

No pen, no ink, no table, no room, no time, no quiet, no inclination.

I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

I am tomorrow or some future day what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.

For myself I always write about Dublin because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.

By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation whether in vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself

Think youre escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.

Shut your eyes and see.

A man of genius makes no mistakes his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

There is not past no future everything flows in an eternal present.

As you are now so once were we.

Do you know what Ireland is? Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.